


L'Uomo Nero

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23336323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Strictly movie!verse, please!A few pages back there’s a prompt about an Italian lullaby, in case you haven’t read it or do not know the lullaby, the lyrics say that the children that misbehave will be left in l'Uomo Nero (aka the Boogeyman)’s care for a month. Now, there’s a more popular version of the lullaby that replaces the ‘month’ with a 'year’, but a year is a lot of time…especially for children.So what if the Boogeyman is not only a caretaker but becomes to these children a sort of familiar figure, some sort of, say, badass grampa or mentor or a combination of the two: strict and cold at times, but caring an interested in the children’s wellbeing and resolved to teach them why fear is important and other important lessons because 'the Guardians won’t always be able to protect you’ (it should also be noted that in Italy Jack Frost, Sandman and the Easter Bunny are mostly unknown...[cut for length]"For this I basically did the optional bonus of Sandy finding Pitch trying to protect the children from wild nightmares. And the subject line said that Blacksand was A-okay so that’s what this is, hooray! And I got a little carried away with the length but I’m sure that’s all right.
Relationships: Pitch Black/Sanderson Mansnoozie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32
Collections: Blacksand Short Fics





	L'Uomo Nero

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 11/14/2016.
> 
> Here's the rest of the prompt: "and that there isn’t any 'egg-hunting tradition’, and that, if these cildren are really his only believers, he will want to protect and be loved by them as much as he can).  
> As a tribute and thank you to Pitch, the children, once they grow up, sing their own kids the lullaby of the Uomo Nero and teach them of the Boogeyman. Over the years some children stop believeing or forget to pass on the knowledge, but those who do become very well Pitch’s believers and, in a way, his legacy.  
> I’m not saying they all love him and/or consider him part of their families, but they believe in him and are grateful for his lessons and -most important of all- know his motives and his pains. And while they do not approve of what he did during the course of the movie (let’s say they feared he was about to do something like that), they understand his reasons and are mostly willing to forgive him.  
> Which is why, after the events of the movie, children are -still- sent down to his lair (some of them may have met Pitch before when he came to get their siblings, or maybe they were in his care before, you decide).
> 
> In short: People still believe in Pitch and pass on the lullaby down their lineages as a tribute to him and to grant him believers; Pitch, in turn, takes care of their misbehaving children for a year and teaches them stuff.
> 
> Bonus:  
> \+ set post movie but with some history!  
> ++ his adult believers send him children also to make sure that he is fine (for some reason human adults can’t reach his realm)  
> +++ bonding with children! Please I want to see how Pitch deals with them! (he said in the movie that he wanted a family and this is as close to it as he can get)  
> (optional)++++ Sandy comes to check on him and finds him weak and trying to protect the children from the rampaging nightmares.  
> and +++++ the children decide to play matchmaker (up to you if the succeed or not)
> 
> I hope it was easy to understand since English and not too much, this is literally my first prompt ever ^^’"

Sandy really disliked it when Pitch killed him. It made arguing with the moon for Pitch’s continued existence so difficult. But there was nothing else to be done. Pitch was essential, and after so many centuries, it was hard to be surprised that he had resorted to making his argument badly and with a great deal of violence.  
  
Sandy sighed as he piloted his cloud towards one of the openings to Pitch’s realm that he was pretty sure would still be open. The ones in Italy were large and well-established, and no matter what exactly had happened to Pitch in Burgess after the nightmares turned on him, Sandy couldn’t imagine that anything short of Pitch’s death could make them collapse, and that was something that would require a lot more power than a few dozen nightmares could summon. Pitch was Pitch. He was the Boogeyman, and he had plenty of believers, and plenty of important work to do. It was just that the Man in the Moon didn’t agree.  
  
Sandy shook his head. When the Man in the Moon had proposed that the legends of childhood become Guardians, it had seemed wholly good and wonderful. North had been given the additional center of Wonder, Tooth of Memory, and Bunny of Hope. But when Pitch had been offered a new center, he had rejected it outright, saying that he was complete as he was and if the Man in the Moon thought that the world was close to becoming a place where fear had no place, he was hopelessly naïve and he shouldn’t think that he could guide four sheep, let alone four Guardians. The Man in the Moon would not let such an insult pass, and well, the rest was history. Sandy was glad the Man in the Moon hadn’t given him a new center, which allowed him to be more independent in his thoughts about Pitch, even though the Man in the Moon probably wasn’t glad about it.  
  
But what did he know? He didn’t, or refused to, understand that his means of protecting children weren’t the only way, and not the best way in every situation. So the Guardians’ conflict with Pitch dragged out forever, and when things ended badly for Pitch, Sandy was always the one to come out and do the kind of thing he was doing now.  
  
He only hoped he hadn’t waited too long. Before, there hadn’t been nightmares. Oh, how could Pitch have not known how dangerous that was….  
  
The passage into Pitch’s lair was wide and easy to navigate by the light of dreamsand. Sandy followed its twists and turns until the cave started sprouting doors, dim lights in sconces, and side passages into dark-colored but otherwise ordinary-looking large living rooms, like dormitory common rooms. He saw some toys abandoned on the floor and his brow creased with worry. Pitch didn’t stand for untidiness like that. He worked very hard to make sure that the kids that he ‘got’ didn’t develop habits that would get them sent off to l'Uomo Nero again, even in jest (even if many of the kids found it quite exciting and interesting to spend a month with l'Uomo Nero and wouldn’t mind at all getting ‘got’ again).  
  
Sandy searched all the familiar places in the Italian lair and found nothing. The bedrooms were all empty, and he couldn’t sense anyone sleeping anywhere in the lair.  
  
But he couldn’t give up. There were kids here, somewhere. Pitch was here, somewhere.  
  
Sandy journeyed deeper into the lair, into more treacherous and frightening places, passages where l'Uomo Nero would rarely take children, and then passages he would never let them explore once they had been committed to his charge.  
  
It was down one of these that he heard, faintly, the whinnying and screaming.  
  
When he finally saw movement, he didn’t hesitate to act. This close, he could sense the stolen dreamsand of the nightmares, and summoned his whips without a second thought. His lashes were quick, precise, and within minutes all the nightmares clustering around the dead end of the passage were so much glittering dreamsand slowly disappearing back into Dreamland.  
  
What remained then were Pitch, his shadows, and, when those shadows were gathered again, fifteen wide-eyed children standing behind him. Pitch turned, did a quick headcount, then looked back at Sandy. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and he looked thinner than ever. His expression did not quite manage to be a glare.  
  
“Come now, follow me, everyone,” Pitch said in Italian. “We must go back to your rooms. You can’t stay in a hole for a month, and there won’t be any nightmares there. And if there were…well, you see, we have a guest who is willing to take care of that problem.”  
  
 _The dorms are empty,_ Sandy signed.  
  
Pitch nodded. “Hurry, hurry,” he said, and with only a little murmuring the children let themselves be herded back through the caves.  
  
When they were back in the more hospitable parts of the lair, Sandy watched as, dead on his feet, Pitch passed out buttered bread and cheese to children that were now growing increasingly rowdy, muttering to himself the whole time about whether it was all right to skip all vegetables just this once.  
  
 _Pitch,_ Sandy signed. _Forget the lessons now. Give them all hot chocolate for being brave and send them to bed. We need to talk._  
  
“Always so blunt,” Pitch murmured. “And all for a conversation that won’t get us anywhere.”  
  
 _The conversation could at least go somewhere if you would let it. Send them to bed. I’ll give them dreamsand if it won’t upset your space too much._  
  
Pitch sighed. “You know this is the most stable part of my realm. All right. Just be patient for a few minutes.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“I suppose you’re waiting for me to thank you,” Pitch said to Sandy. They sat at the ends of one of the couches in a common room.  
  
Sandy sipped a cup of hot chocolate, then sighed and looked over at Pitch. He shook his head. _I know what you’re like by now._  
  
Pitch folded his arms and gave Sandy a sidelong look. “You bastard,” he said lightly. “The one time you don’t ask is the time when I’m actually grateful.” He paused, then bent down to pick up a left-behind toy. It was a stuffed dolphin. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I…don’t know how I would have protected those children without your help. I don’t have the loopholes you and the Guardians do, that sudden luck, that sudden power when you’re protecting a child. All I have is myself, and, well, I was recently weakened.”  
  
 _Were you going to stay there protecting them as long as you could?_  
  
Pitch grimaced. “I…of course not. I’m the Boogeyman. My immortal existence is far more important than that of a few children! Of course I would have left when I realized the only being I could actually save there was myself.”  
  
Sandy didn’t reply at once. _Why do you bother lying to me?_  
  
Pitch petted the toy dolphin. “Perhaps I do so because I fear that someday you will believe I am the Boogeyman the Man in the Moon has told the other Guardians I am, and I want to know when that moment has arrived.”  
  
 _How can that day ever come, when I know you would die for the children in your charge?_  
  
Pitch scoffed. “Don’t make it sound so noble. I’m not a hero, I’m a punishment for them. There was simply no other option.”  
  
Sandy shrugged. _If that’s how you think of it. I’m not here to argue with that. I came here to see if you were all right. Or, that is, all things considered…._ His symbols slowly dissolved.  
  
“I’m glad you realize that I haven’t been all right in a very long while,” Pitch said. “But…the nightmares are a problem. They never worked _with_ me, and I no longer have the power to make them do anything by brute force, even though I have been regaining my strength, as I always do. The nightmares are changing.”  
  
 _I’m not surprised. Even I don’t know everything about dreamsand, and once you severed it from me, it really could become anything._ Sandy paused, and studied Pitch’s face, which had gone an even sicklier gray than usual. _How many nightmares?_ he asked. _How much nightmaresand, even now?_  
  
“I think the nightmaresand is self-sustaining, if that doesn’t seem too improbable,” Pitch said woodenly.  
  
Sandy frowned deeply. _No, that doesn’t seem too improbable at all. The source is somewhere in your lair?_  
  
“Of course, but suggesting we just find it is more easily said than done.” Pitch suddenly leaned back, as if all his strings had been cut. “I don’t have time for this! Why—why is nothing ever simple! I have fifteen kids here right now and now that I’m actually back to receive them, there will be more here by morning, and I can’t neglect them, it would make a farce of everything I do. And what are you really here for, anyway? You said you wanted to talk; are you just here to say you told me so?”  
  
 _I don’t think I told you anything,_ Sandy replied. _You corrupted my dreamsand in secret. I couldn’t have told you it was a bad idea because I didn’t know you were doing it. No. Like I just told you, I came here to see if you were all right. I didn’t expect there to be children here, so soon after your defeat. And I came here also to tell you that once again I’m going to argue for your existence, even as your murder victim._  
  
“I expect you’re getting tired of doing that,” Pitch said, his voice quieter than before.  
  
Sandy nodded emphatically.  
  
“Then why come to see if I’m all right?”  
  
Sandy leaned back and considered Pitch. _For one thing, you’re as real as any of us Guardians. You don’t need me to tell you again, but you have a place in the world. Things would get seriously strange if you weren’t around._  
  
“A practical matter, then,” Pitch said. He raised an eyebrow and didn’t say anything else.  
  
 _Well, there’s also the part where you’re the being I’ve known the longest. The being I know best. The being who, if he’s my enemy, has done an absolutely terrible job of it over the millennia. The being who I know I can say anything to._  
  
Sandy had been reading Pitch’s face for a long time, and there was no mistaking the slight smile that lightened it just now.  
  
“If I’ve done a terrible job of being your enemy, I’ve probably done an even worse job of being your friend,” Pitch said.  
  
 _Maybe since the Man in the Moon came along,_ Sandy admitted.  
  
“If it hadn’t been for the nightmares, you know I would have been as all right as I’ve ever been, like I always am,” Pitch said. “You didn’t have to come here to find that out.”  
  
 _Well, you never invite me over._ Sandy shrugged.  
  
Pitch snorted. “It couldn’t be good for you to be seen fraternizing with me. And, anyway, if we’re not enemies, and we’re not friends, then what….”  
  
 _Let’s see. We’re not strangers, we’re not acquaintances, we’re not co-workers, we’re not family, what a relief._  
  
Pitch stared at Sandy. “I’m suddenly finding this banter not very amusing.”  
  
 _Well, I don’t want you to think of it as a joke, so, good._ Sandy turned away from Pitch and folded his hands, resting them on his belly.  
  
“Does this have anything to do with you assuming that there would be no children here when you visited?” Pitch hissed.  
  
Sandy felt himself blush slightly. _Don’t get ahead of yourself. Perhaps I don’t know why I started this conversation either, perhaps I wouldn’t have said anything, perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything, but—I thought—a worse loneliness—seeing you protect them—not all sweetness and light myself and no one else—_  
  
“Your sand symbols are getting jumbled,” Pitch said. “But I—that is—you daft Guardian, of course that would be the thing that got your attention—that is—look, if you’re telling me not to get ahead of myself, does that mean that we’ve got some sort of destination, the same destination, even, in mind?”  
  
Sandy turned to Pitch to find him sitting up very straight, so tightly wound that whatever happened next would either break him or send him into incredible motion. He had dropped the stuffed dolphin on the floor. Sandy took a deep, unnecessary breath. _For quite some time now I have been thinking of ruining whatever sort of relationship we have and asking you if we might try being lovers—_  
  
The remnants of Sandy’s symbols tumbled over Pitch’s back as his tension turned into a motion that launched him across the couch toward Sandy where he could wrap his arms around him. “The Man in the Moon is going to be so angry with you,” he said. Sandy nodded. Pitch laughed disbelievingly and pressed a quick and clumsy kiss to Sandy’s lips. “The Guardians are going to be angry with you.” He kissed him again. “You know all of my bad qualities so I won’t list them right now, but.” He kissed him again, and Sandy made him stay longer this time. “I forget everything I ever knew about having a human body of any kind,” he said hoarsely.  
  
 _Me too,_ Sandy admitted. _But we’ll do all right with the ones we have, I think._ He grinned up at Pitch.  
  
Pitch laughed again—really, it was more like a giggle, now. “We’re both going to regret this.”  
  
 _No, I really think we won’t. Well, as long as the kids don’t catch us and we don’t forget to deal with the nightmare sand._  
  
“That’s right,” Pitch said, looking suddenly more sober. “We should…we should…” The room shifted around them and a dark blush spread across Pitch’s face as he realized they were now in his bedroom, in his bed. “Um, good news Sandy, I seem to be feeling well enough that my lair is responding to my subconscious again.” Sandy laughed, and Pitch felt that laugh within his arms.  
  
 _That’s good. Now we have privacy and a little time._  
  
“Well, if you say we have time…” Pitch licked his lips. “I’ve just realized you literally taste sweet. That’s a terrible pun. It’s going to kill me. I’d like to get on with making a fool of myself, if you don’t mind.”  
  
“There’s nothing I’d like better,” Sandy said, out loud, very softly.  
  
And then it was a very good thing that the children were deeply asleep and the nightmaresand problem wasn’t the most urgent of emergencies.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> tejoxys reblogged this from gretchensinister: #this is really good#really excellent interactions and dialogue here (sandy's speech getting all jumbled! so cute)
> 
> sylphidine reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> I medically needed this tale. :::flails incoherently:::


End file.
